Page 171 - Cultural Theory

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••• William Merrin •••

the only cultural thinker ever to inspire a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster. For his
critics, however, this popularity only confirms his unholy spell. Baudrillard retains his
hint of sulphur as an evil genie of postmodern appearances.
For the English-speaking world at least, the origins of these fault lines lie in the
reception of ‘postmodernism’ in the early 1980s, an emerging movement which
began to stir debate among left-leaning scholars in Australia, Canada, America, and
later Britain. With little regard for the complexities of his position or his own disin-
terest in the concept, Baudrillard was quickly identified as one of its key theorists by
both its supporters and detractors, and, as ‘the High Priest of Postmodernism’
(Baudrillard, 1989), he became a target for the vocal critique being developed by the
Left. Arthur Kroker’s sympathetic Marxist reading of his work (Kroker, 1985; Kroker
and Cook, 1988) was the spur for Douglas Kellner’s critical response, developed across
a series of articles, introductions and the first book on his work (Kellner, 1987; 1988;
1989; Best and Kellner, 1991; Kellner, 1994: 1–23), and for the related critiques offered
by Callinicos (1989) and Norris (1990; 1992). Their interpretation of Baudrillard’s
work as reactionary in its movement away from Marxism; as nihilistic in its celebra-
tion of postmodern life and rejection of truth and reality, and as charlatanistic in its
style and method, though at best weak and, at its worst, seriously flawed, has never-
theless had a lasting effect upon his reputation, with its more simplistic claims still
being commonly repeated. In contrast to this, a more sophisticated line of interpreta-
tion began to be developed by Mike Gane (1991a; 1991b; 1995; 2000a), and a differ-
ent picture of Baudrillard emerged through the 1990s with the waning of the
controversy over postmodernism (with its de facto, but ultimately pyrrhic, victory as
it faded from debate); with a growing list of books (Stearns and Chaloupka, 1992;
Rojek and Turner, 1993; Kellner, 1994, Genosko, 1994; 1999; Levin, 1996; Zurbrugg,
1997; Butler, 1999; Grace, 2000) and articles (Gane, 2000b) developing an informed
critical literature and appreciation of his work, and with the availability in translation
of his major writings; and the gradual penetration of his ideas across a range of disci-
plines and subject areas such as sociology, cultural studies, media and communication
studies, visual culture, photography, art theory and history, social and cultural history,
philosophy, geography and architecture. Regardless of one’s personal antipathies,
Baudrillard had become intellectually unavoidable.
It is the aim of this chapter to consider why this should be so; to offer an intro-
duction to some of the central themes of Baudrillard’s work in order to highlight his
contribution towards our understanding of contemporary society and culture, as well
as his challenge to established disciplines, paradigms, and methodologies such as
those of cultural theory itself. The chapter begins by looking at Baudrillard’s critique
of consumption, together with his semiotic–symbolic distinction, his critique of the
political economy of the sign and its later development with the foregrounding of
the concept of simulation, turning then to consider how these ideas are deployed in
his critique of technology and contemporary media and in his critical depiction of
our western civilization and its processes. Finally, it considers possible critical
responses to Baudrillard’s work and offers a defence of it in the light of his theoreti-
cal methodology.

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